What will Blizzard do about toxic players?

If LoL can be cleaned up, so can WoW.

What do you think Blizzard is going to do?

Among other things, I'd like to see players have to agree to a simple one page "Summoner's Code" type login screen. Not every time but at least as often as they are presented with the unreadable ToS and license screens.

Player tribunals have problems but I would like to see Blizzard develop those too.

I guarantee you, Blizzard is going to move on this problem by the start of the next expansion.

Do you play LoL? they really did clean up the toxic players. statistics agree with me

It was never Hardcore Vs Casual. It was Socialites Vs. Solo players

Originally Posted by ringpriest

World of Warcraft started life as a Computer Roleplaying Game, where part of the fun of the game experience was pretending to be your character. Stuff like applying poisons and eating food enhanced the verisimilitude of the experience of playing a fantasy character in another world. Now that game has changed to become a tactical arcade lobby game.

Among other things, I'd like to see players have to agree to a simple one page "Summoner's Code" type login screen. Not every time but at least as often as they are presented with the unreadable ToS and license screens.

Player tribunals have problems but I would like to see Blizzard develop those too.

I guarantee you, Blizzard is going to move on this problem by the start of the next expansion.

LOL is free to play. Simply means that if they get banned they can just make another account and play more. With WoW its a little different, unless they do something specifically against the ToS(IE botting, hacking, etc), nothing can really be done to these so called 'toxic' players, especially since its player's money you are dealing with.

What is a toxic player? At what point is a player cross the toxic line?

That's pretty easy to define.

A player is "toxic" to the community when his behavior has a negative impact on multiple players' desire to remain in the game.

---------- Post added 2013-06-15 at 11:51 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Orbitus

LOL is free to play. Simply means that if they get banned they can just make another account and play more. With WoW its a little different, unless they do something specifically against the ToS(IE botting, hacking, etc), nothing can really be done to these so called 'toxic' players, especially since its player's money you are dealing with.

The ToS allow Blizzard to ban or arbitrarily discipline any player in any manner for any reason.

With WoW its a little different, unless they do something specifically against the ToS(IE botting, hacking, etc), nothing can really be done to these so called 'toxic' players, especially since its player's money you are dealing with.

As long as money are already paid - blizz could just flag account so it cannot pay anymore for next month. If they wanted

The ToS allow Blizzard to ban or arbitrarily discipline any player in any manner for any reason.

The difference is that League of Legends has a problem with freshly-pubing, greasy, angst-driven children because that's the sort of audience it targets. In the near-decade of playing World of Warcraft, I haven't seen 1% of the toxic players that one would encounter in League of Legends from 15 minutes of play.

A Toxic player is someone who is vile, childish, abusive, and generally nasty to everyone they don't deem to be as good as them, which in their minds is no one.
Sadly there is nothing that can be done to rid the community of these players other than blizzard going on a individual ban spree.

As for the "summoners code" idea by the op, wont work, after all the biggest lie on the net is "I have read the Terms of service". you think adding another screen will stop people who's default state is to open their mouths and let flow a torrent of verbal diarrhea every time there lips flap in a nonsensical way.

Nuclear weapons: A firm public commitment to build the £100bn renewal of the Trident weapons system, followed by an equally firm private commitment not to build it. They’re secret submarines, no one will ever know. It’s a win win.

Among other things, I'd like to see players have to agree to a simple one page "Summoner's Code" type login screen. Not every time but at least as often as they are presented with the unreadable ToS and license screens.

Player tribunals have problems but I would like to see Blizzard develop those too.

I guarantee you, Blizzard is going to move on this problem by the start of the next expansion.

LoL hasn't even remotely cleaned up the toxic player problem. I always get games with someone on one team or another who is just the most toxic disrespectful person ever. He and his team could be winning 50/0 and he would still be bitching about something and yelling to report someone for unskilled.

It's like crossing an intersection. There's shit going on all over the place and you don't panic and act like an idiot then do you?

The difference is that League of Legends has a problem with freshly-pubing, greasy, angst-driven children because that's the sort of audience it targets. In the near-decade of playing World of Warcraft, I haven't seen 1% of the toxic players that one would encounter in League of Legends from 15 minutes of play.

You need to ask yourself, what is it about WoW that is offputting to new players.

Right now, the answer is "Well, some people are just total assholes." The audience of new players is being put off by total assholes.

For a long time, Blizzard has tolerated total assholery as, perhaps, a kind of roleplaying. But I don't think that's sustainable. And I am sure Blizzard no longer thinks it's the way to go either.

WoW has to become a place where people play nice, or they have to play another game. Otherwise, it might actually become a game with 1M subscribers.

I highly doubt LoL got rid of the toxic behavior in their community, I don't play the game but I know the genre. They might have reduced it, but not removed it. I definitely feel that Blizzard should make a move in the same direction though, to show that they don't tolerate such behavior from their players.

I highly doubt LoL got rid of the toxic behavior in their community, I don't play the game but I know the genre. They might have reduced it, but not removed it. I definitely feel that Blizzard should make a move in the same direction though, to show that they don't tolerate such behavior from their players.

You can't eliminate the behavior, but it's possible to make most offenders stop it through corrective action. Not all, but most.

Blizzard has done nothing to stop players behaving like jerks, because Blizzard has tolerated in-game jerkitude as a kind of interpersonal dynamic. But changing that is as simple as flipping a switch.